Stealpot

Indian Salon

With his second release, Indian Salon, nu-jazzer Stealpot has made an album both mellow and frisky, evocative and unrefined. The most natural mode for Szymon Folwarczny, the Polish musician behind Stealpot, is down-tempo. With a crooning trumpet, thin rhythms, and light washes of electronic, he pieces together melty dreamscapes that wander aimlessly as often as they elicit wonder. In succession, “Finding Perfect Love” and “Kimi No Oto”, which comprise part of the album’s final leg, bleed into a wafting, drawn-out mass of trumpet and low-impact percussion. Neither can quite find the pitch of velvet sensuality that eases through “On Time” and the title track. But Stealpot is more commanding when the relative calm breaks into a storm. Like the eruptive horn chorus on “Jazzcore in the Rock Opera” and the noisily dense passages of “Tiho I Lako”, these outbursts show an artist of elegance and restraint excitedly letting loose.